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Jim Morrison.
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Lead singer for the rock group the Doors, Jim Morrison (1943-1971) personified the mind-bending, uninhibited lifestyle of the 1960s, in his brief but brilliant career.Like few bands other than the Bea...
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Critical Essay by Paul Williams and Paul Rothchild
Williams: On interpreting "The End," I considered for the first time the other day, that the lines "This is the end my only frie...
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Critical Essay by Michael Cuscuna
The Doors … were among those who created the rock underground, and turned the deaf, overconfident recording industry around. Without hit singles, these groups ...
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Critical Essay by Patricia Kennely
Absolutely Live is one of the absolutely finest live rock and roll albums ever made, and no mistake….
Absolutely Live is good…. [Enough] new songs are ...
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Critical Essay by Gloria Vanjak
There are a few fine [songs on Absolutely Live]: "Who Do You Love," "Build Me A Woman," and Willie Dixon's "Close To You,...
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Critical Essay by Lester Bangs
[Thirteen is] a total, A-1 rock 'n' roll album, worthy of a place of honor in anybody's collection….
One heretofore somewhat clouded point br...
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Critical Essay by R. Meltzer
There isn't one serious cut on [L.A. Woman]….
[Morrison is] taking no chances about being taken seriously or with universal import. In fact he's not e...
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Critical Essay by Michael Watts
["L.A. Woman"] stands as [The Doors'] nadir, a spunkless, sterile effort that sounds as if it's been put out just so's everyone won...
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Critical Essay by Michael Oldfield
With Morrison …, each Doors concert or album became more than just music—it was theatre; theatre of the macabre, theatre of cruelty; theatre of the abs...
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Critical Essay by Mike Jahn
[The Doors'] music was a melodic hard rock which did not detract from Morrison's lyrics. Morrison, when he was good, was very good, using broad, emotional and...
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Critical Essay by Lester Bangs
["The End"] was the first major statement of the Doors' perennial themes: dread, violence, guilt without possibility of redemption, the miscarriages...
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Critical Essay by David Dalton and Lenny Kaye
The Doors presented as complete a statement as the Doors themselves were capable of, each track unveiling another facet of Morrison's polygonic per...
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Critical Essay by Sandy Pearlman
The Doors are spectral. Maybe more than anybody. What counts is the impression for which no significant referent detail can or should be found. The music ends and ther...
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Critical Essay by Lester Bangs
An American Prayer [is] the best recitative sluice of American literature on LP since Call Me Burroughs, and hell, even Burroughs never had the sheer nerve to lead with ...
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Critical Essay by Nick Tosches
What Jim Morrison wanted more than anything—more than fame, more than wealth, more than the women's wet submission that fame brought with it—was to ...
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Critical Essay by Toby Goldstein
Jim Morrison's life was filled with the events of which legends are made. No mere rock singer, he was both godlike and pompous, sensual and piggish, never exist...
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Critical Essay by Paulette Weiss
[Is] "American Prayer" valid today? Can new music by the Doors tacked onto a monologue recorded more than eight years ago do justice to Morrison? Even if...
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Critical Essay by Scott Isler
Poetry or not, Morrison's lyrics always worked best via surprise attack; [on An American Prayer] his earnest readings … are sympathetically backed by the im...
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Critical Essay by Terry Rompers
The Doors' popularity is currently at its highest level since Jim Morrison's demise in July, 1971….
Unfortunately, the fascination with Morrison...
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Critical Essay by Karl Dallas
Sociologists are beginning to think that the sexual revolution of recent years has a wider significance than merely who sleeps with whom. Certainly, in Morrison's ...
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Critical Essay by Jonathan Cott
To see the Doors as a radical political influence seems to me misguided. According to Morrison, "The Unknown Soldier" is a love song. "The violence...
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Critical Essay by Jerry Hopkins
The 40-minute film [Feast of Friends] prudently edited from a much longer and less successful version, represents nearly a year of covering the Doors in concert and on ...
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Critical Essay by Alec Dubro
Alternate suggested titles for The Soft Parade would be The Worst of the Doors, Kick Out the Doors, or best, The Soft Touch.
The Soft Parade is worse than infuriating, it&...
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Critical Essay by Patricia Kennely
Run, do not walk—nay, teleport yourself—to the nearest record store and take this record home with you, 'cause the Doors can still do it and we ...
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Critical Essay by Ed Jeffords
[Highway] is Morrison. Morrison hitchhiking. Morrison speeding through the desert. Morrison drinking beer. Morrison pissing. Only near the end did he reveal he had killed...
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Critical Essay by Lester Bangs
Morrison Hotel opens with a powerful blast of raw funk called "Roadhouse Blues."… This angry hard rock is that at which the Doors have always excell...
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